


Where I Cannot Follow

by PaolaWarbler



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: And always will be, Angst, Harry Potter Crossover - Freeform, I'm still writing Post-Reichenbach, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1406119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaolaWarbler/pseuds/PaolaWarbler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock/Harry Potter Crossover. AU. Based on the gif set of John and Harry looking for the resurrection stone on Tumblr. Post-Reichenbach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where I Cannot Follow

“John, this is insane!” The man said, as he and his friend, John walked into the foggy forest. “I lost it years ago. There’s no way you can find it! Even I don’t know where it is.”  
John Watson ignored the man, instead deciding to search even harder for the precious gem that he needed.  
“John! You need to hear me!” The man reached out and grabbed him by the arm. “Listen, you are grieving. Mary’s death was hard on you. But you just can’t do this. And don’t pretend we don’t know who exactly you want to see.”  
John ripped his arm away from the man’s grasp. With a determined set of his jaw, he just kept looking. The other man sighed and went along with his torch to find an item he hoped they’d never find.  
John set to looking but he couldn’t help think about what his friend had told him. Mary had died a few months ago because of a brain aneurysm. He remembered the doctors’ word fleetingly. “Can’t save her.” “Could be days or months.” “Preparing the funeral arrangements.” “Nothing we can do.” “I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry.”  
But those words didn’t save her nor save John from being completely heart-broken when he came home to find Mary slumped over her desk, no pulse to be found. The funeral was a heart-wrenching occasion, with many of Mary’s friends and family there. John’s family didn’t arrive. John remembered that after the funeral, he set a kiss on Mary’s tombstone and walked to a grave that he knew like the back of his hand. The path was over-grown by John’s lack of use and no one else going to see it. John stood in front of the plain, black gravestone with two words engraved in it. “Sherlock Holmes.” He broke down on Sherlock’s grave, just like he did many years ago. But this time, it was great, heaving sobs that burned his eyes for days afterwards. He was tempted to curl up on the grave and to stay with his best friend forever. Everything he loved was taken away from him and he had no want to live anymore. But on that day, everything in John Watson’s life changed.  
John Watson met Harry Potter completely by accident. John was walking down the street, observing other people and wondering what made them so happy. A man came running out of an alley and knocked him down.  
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” The man said, holding out his hand to lift John up.  
“It’s fine.” John said, keeping his eyes trained on the ground.  
“Are you okay?” The man said, looking at John, keenly.  
John snorted. Okay? Okay was for people whose wives didn’t die and leave them alone in the world. Okay was for people who weren’t haunted by their best friend’s suicide. Okay was for men that weren’t John Watson, who was plagued by so many demons it was hard to keep track.  
John just shook his head and went to walk around the man but the man stopped him and said, “Do you want to go out for a cuppa?”  
John didn’t know this man and he had every reason in the world to say no, but John looked up into the man’s vaguely familiar eyes and nodded.  
That day, John Watson and Harry Potter became friends.  
This is how John came here in the Forbidden Forest, looking for the Resurrection Stone. Harry kept telling that it was bad news and even showed him the story but John was determined to find it and use it. Maybe it would take away his demons. Never for a second did he think that it would add to his.  
Looking through the forest was harder than ever with the October chill creeping in and the fog all over the place. But they had gone to the place Harry remembered dropping it and had been searching. As John’s torch swept through more empty forest ground, he felt despair grow in his chest. Maybe Harry was right. Maybe John shouldn’t look for it. As John was going to call off the search, something lighted at the very edge of his circle of light. He edged closer to the item, afraid of it being some magical creature hiding here. But as John approached it, it didn’t move and seemed to have an iridescent shine coming off of it. John moved as closely to the item as he dared and stood still for a moment.  
Harry stood on the other side of the clearing, looking half-heartedly for the stone, still hoping that John would call off this ridiculous search.  
“Harry.” John barely breathed.  
Harry turned around and saw John looking at something on the ground with a sense of fear and awe. Harry rushed toward John, fear growing icily in his veins. He had a sinking feeling in his gut that he knew what that was.  
“Is it?” John whispered, afraid to move or speak louder.  
“Yeah.” Harry breathed out; already familiar with the way it looked.  
John made a motion to reach for it but stopped at the last moment.  
“Look, John, we don’t have to get it. I can just slip it into my cloak pocket and we’ll forget about the whole thing.” Harry pitched desperately, hoping to make John change his mind.  
But it only made John determined again and John grasped the stone. He held it up to the faint moonlight coming through the trees. He let out a shuddery breath and Harry noticed tears shining on his cheeks.  
“C-can you move back a bit?” John choked out, emotions threatening to overwhelm him. Harry took a few steps back and watched with bated breath as John threw the stone on the ground. The moment that he was dreaded was upon him.  
The stone smoked for a moment as a body came out of it. It had the forming of a man, presumably John’s father or grandfather. As the body came into focus, another body began to form. It had the petite form of a woman. Harry assumed this was Mary. As both bodies began to focus into the world of the living, Harry took a glance at John. Harry had expected John to be surprised and enraptured with how he got to see the dead but he was still staring at the stone, waiting.  
John was suddenly snapped out of his waiting by a female voice saying, “John, honey, is that you?”  
John’s head snapped up and he watched Mary look at him with surprise in her eyes. “How can I see you? Are you dead?”  
John shook his head slowly, unable to speak. John’s father stared at him for a moment before saying, gruffly, “How are we here, son?”  
John just shook his head again and Harry could see the tears falling quickly and silently from his face.  
“John?” Mary said, tentatively, reaching a hand out to touch him. Harry quickly came up to her and shook his head silently. John was staring at the rock in complete despair. There must some kind of explanation.  
“You might just want to go now.” Harry said, still staring at John.  
“Who are you?” Mary asked, looking at John with utter sadness.  
“Please, just leave.”  
Everybody jumped. John’s voice was broken beyond recognition. His grief seemed to be too much for him as his knees suddenly buckled and he was left slumped on the grass.  
Mary and John’s father looked at him in concern but this time made no objection when Harry asked them to leave.  
“I love you, John.” Mary said, before fading in to the mist. John’s father disappeared without a word.  
Harry stood there for a moment, wondering what to do. “John?” He said, quietly.  
That seemed to snap John out of his moment of despair. When John looked up, Harry was frightened to see such a blaze of anger in his eyes.  
“WHY DIDN’T IT WORK?” John demanded, standing up again.  
Harry was at a loss for words. He couldn’t think of anything to help John.  
John started pacing across the clearing. “WHY DIDN’T HE SHOW UP? THAT BASTARD, I BET HE JUST DECIDED NOT TO SHOW UP. HE NEVER CARED ABOUT ME. HE JUST LIKES FUCKING WITH ME. EVEN IN DEATH, HE’S STILL MESSING WITH ME. I CAN HEAR HIM EVERY DAY IN MY HEAD. HE’S ALWAYS DEDUCING PEOPLE, TELLING ME WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING.” John broke down in hysterical sobs. “Why can’t he just show up and give me some peace? Why didn’t he show up?”  
Harry stood where he was, partly shocked into silence and thinking the question over.  
John gasped brokenly and whispered, “What if he’s too far for me to reach? What if he’s gone somewhere I can’t go? What if he’s found a place to evade people even in the afterlife? What if he’s gone so far no one can find him?”  
These thoughts seemed to break John even more. Harry rushed over to him before John slumped onto the ground again. John’s grief took him as prey again and John was dead to the world. Sherlock Holmes was gone, for good. Sherlock Holmes has disappeared so well from this planet that nothing, not even a gift from Death can find him. Bloody git.  
Harry just pulled John up to his feet and grabbed their torches. He walked under the burden of John’s body but he made his way out of the Forbidden Forest without much of a problem. He carried John to Hagrid’s old cabin and laid him down on the straw bedding. John was so far gone from the world that he didn’t do anything but curl up into a ball. A few moments later, John’s breathing evened out and he was snoring.  
Harry sat down on the stool next to the chair, exhausted. He placed a piece of paper over the candle six times, signaling. A few moments later, the door was being opened again. A tall man walked in but he was different that no one would’ve recognized him. Gone was the curly, black hair, it was replaced with straight, blonde hair. His carefully sharpened cheekbones were even more pronounced. His baggy, dirty clothes hung heavily over his thin frame and his eyes weren’t their beautiful combination of colors but a dull grey.  
“How is he?” The man said; his voice husky with lack of use and breathing in dirt from the various grounds he’s slept on.  
“Terrible. You should’ve seen him in the forest when he found the stone. I was afraid he was going to hurt himself.”  
The man seemed to collapse inside himself. There was grief as deep as John’s on that face and in those eyes. “I know.” The man said, softly. “I heard him.”  
Harry felt a deep sorrow in his heart for this man and the man on the straw bed, fast asleep. It was a hard world for the both of them and they didn’t know if the world would ever be okay for them again.  
Sherlock looked at John’s sleeping figure for a moment before asking quietly, “Buckbeak is outside. Check on him, will you?”  
Harry nodded silently, leaving the two grieving men alone.  
Sherlock watched John for a little while longer but he could already feel time slipping from his hands. Soon, it would be dawn and John would awake, worse for wear but still soldiering on. Sherlock hesitantly drew next to John. John was deep in sleep right now, if his snoring and breathing patterns were anything to go on. Sherlock hovered his hand over John’s left cheek before finally giving in and feeling John’s warm skin beneath his. He almost let the cascade of emotions overwhelm him and his senses but allowed himself a moment to cool down and understand what was really going on. His logic won out again and he just allowed himself that one touch. He retracted his hand and looked at John’s sleeping face again.  
Sherlock still felt empty though. He felt like something was deeply missing inside of him and it was an extremely pleasing idea to curl up next to John right now for a nice sleep. He hasn’t sleep on a proper bed for months now. But Sherlock knew the consequences of doing that and he didn’t want to risk John’s safety for a few emotions. When Sherlock heard Harry coming back into the house, though, Sherlock quickly made up his mind. Sherlock bent over John’s sleeping form and planted a quick little kiss on his cheek. “I love you, John Watson.” Sherlock whispered against his skin and straightened up as Harry opened the door.  
Harry walked up to Sherlock and whispered, “Buckbeak is ready to fly off again. You might want to leave right now. He might wake up soon.”  
Sherlock nodded sharply and turned away from John with great difficulty. He nodded once to Harry and said roughly, “Thank you.”  
Harry just nodded and watched as Sherlock walked out the door, never to be heard of again.  
John Watson smiled softly in his dreams, though. Because in his dreams, he and Sherlock were flying high in the sky on a beast with a winged horse body and with the front body of an eagle and Sherlock held him tight and whispered, “I love you, John Watson.” He felt a small pressure on his cheek and felt his heart surge up in joy.  
When John Watson and Sherlock Holmes wake up the next morning, they’ll have a deep heartache in both of their chests, so painful it will be hard to breathe but they will both have a sense of happiness within them. A small flame of hope and joy that can never be extinguished, not even by Death.


End file.
